Welcoming Back SBU Winter Study Abroad
By Johanna Mitra, ICTE/CVB Communications Officer; January 25th, 2023
Centre ValBio kicked off the new year with a visit from the Winter Study Abroad students
from Stony Brook University. For three weeks, 20 SBU students, two Malagasy students
from the University of Antananarivo, as well as Dr. Mónica Ramírez, a primatologist
from Colombia, Jon Romano, a zoo veterinarian from Long Island University, and Dotty
Shaffer, a medical doctor from Cincinnati, conducted research alongside CVB’s conservation
and health teams. Also overlapping with the study abroad group was a visit from SBU
President Maurie McInnis and U.S. Ambassador Claire A. Pierangelo. This was an exciting
opportunity for President McInnis to see students in action and out in the field!
Between excursions to the town and markets of Ranomafana, lectures on Madagascar’s
history and biodiversity given by Dr. Patricia Wright, and guided hikes in the national
park, each student developed a research project that aligned with their interests
and CVB’s mission. Projects ranged from lemur behavior and insect diversity to pediatric
health, and all were impressively designed and executed.
The Health Team, led by Dr. Thomas and joined by Dr. Dotty Shaffer and six Stony Brook students, set out for a three-day expedition to the remote village of Ampitambe to deliver free healthcare to residents. Senior Dillon Pekoff surveyed villagers seeking care to try and determine the leading cause of fever. Ocean Karim, also in his last year at Stony Brook, examined which diagnoses were most common amongst the pediatric patients seen by the Health Team. Sabrina Felix, a master’s student at SBU, collected blood pressure measurements to assess the correlation between hypertension and magnesium deficiency.
The CVB Health Team on an expedition to Ampitambe. Photo courtesy of Ocean Karim
Back at Ranomafana National Park, the lemur teams split up to conduct observational studies. Antsa Ramboninarimalala and Finaritra Benjamin studied how weather can affect activity patterns in golden bamboo lemurs. Sophie Thomas, Alex Casamassima, and Marissa McCandless followed Simone, a greater bamboo lemur, to better understand how her status as the last remaining individual of her species in the park might influence her behavior. Marie Collison closely observed the only infant within the Group I Milne-Edwards’s sifaka for a comprehensive look at group dynamics.
The insect team, with SBU students Megumi Imaizumi, Michelle Kiroff, Tania Valenzuela Lozano, and Julianna Dovi, split their time between Ranomafana’s bamboo and guava forests to compare insect abundance and diversity in the two habitats. With the help of CVB’s research technicians, the students also collected insects to be preserved, studied, and added to CVB’s growing Insectarium in the biodiversity lab.
Sarah Vaccaro, a first-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at Stony Brook, began her research on aquatic tenrecs, a small and incredibly elusive species endemic to Madagascar. Working together with CVB’s Emile Rajeriarison, a local expert in Ranomafana’s biodiversity, Sarah recorded data on stream characteristics and set up pitfall traps with the hopes of observing aquatic tenrecs. She plans to continue her research next year at CVB.
The student’s projects culminated in a series of presentations given to CVB staff,
representatives of Madagascar National Parks, faculty members from the University
of Fianarantsoa, as well as SBU’s President and the U.S. Ambassador. It was impressive
to see how the students made the most of their short stay at CVB and Ranomafana. As
President McInnis expressed it, “For each one of them, this has been not only an intellectual
journey but also a personal journey. They’ll go back home with not only a different
appreciation of the world but also a different appreciation of themselves.”
Students from the Health Team expedition present their findings to their peers, SBU President Maurie McInnis, and other distinguished guests. Photo courtesy of Johanna Mitra